Volume 1 Issue 2: Fall 2007

December 2007 Volume 1, Issue 2

FEATURING: Interview with Randall Wallace, Braveheart screenwriter and Duke Alum

RELIGIO

An Undergraduate Journal of Christian Thought at Duke

Editors Nate Jones and Andy Crewson Publication Manager Katie Daniel Copy Editor Sarah Howell Business Manager Will Payne Internet Editor Nick Alexander Photographer Jayne Swank Staff Sponsor Craig Kocher, Associate Dean of Duke Chapel and Director of Religious Life Religio is an Independent Publication recognized by the Duke University Undergraduate Publications Board.

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Material in this journal is either original, published with permission or used pursuant to the fair use doctrine. The use of any copyrighted material pursuant to the fair use doctrine or otherwise is not intended to represent the views or opinions of the original producer of the work. Additionally, no work or image published herein may be copied or reproduced without the express written consent of the journal.

RELIGIO

December 2007 Volume 1, Issue 2

FEATURE: Seek the Music of Your Soul: An Interview with Randall Wallace An interview with the Hollywood screenwriter, director, producer and Duke alum who is the creator of films such as Braveheart, We Were Soldiers and Man in the Iron Mask. Wallace discusses his works, his inspirations and his time at the gothic wonderland. p. 23

CHRIST IN FILM AND FICTION:

Discussions and reflec-

tions over theological themes in various works of literature and film.

Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart: A Lesson in Faith from My Sister’s Keeper Lawrence Armand p. 8 Seeking the Pear Tree: A Mandate to Love in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God Katie Daniel p. 10

Rurouni Kenshin: Finding the Word in unexpected places James Smyth p. 12 At the Deathbed of Valjean: Les Miserables and the Beatific Vision Nate Jones p. 14 Film in Review: The Bourne Ultimatum Benjamen Ober p. 16 Sacrificial Love: An Image of Christ in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Jeff Dahlberg p. 18

ALSO INSIDE: Note from the Editors Nate Jones and Andy Crewson p. 4

Redefining Religious Relationships: The Interfaith Imperative Jonathan Cross p. 5 Where I See Christ at Duke: Personal Accounts from the Duke Community p. 20

Poetry and Lyrics p. 22 Hope for The Kingdom: Observations on the Church in Spain Leigh Edwards p. 26 Perspectives on the Death Penalty Sarah Howell and William Payne p. 28

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Note from the Editors Religio is an undergraduate journal of Christian thought at Duke University. Our purpose is to provide Duke students, faculty and staff a venue to read and write about their Christian faith. This university was founded on the premise that knowledge and religion, eruditio et religio, are central to the development and formation of all persons. Thus, it is our mission once again to bring Christianity into dialogue with the learning of this university. Our staff and writers are Duke undergraduates from a diverse range of Christian traditions and members of a variety of fellowships on campus.

This journal is part of a larger initiative called “The Augustine Project.” This project was created by Jordan Hylden, a Harvard alum and current Duke Divinity student, and seeks to establish journals of Christian thought at college and university campuses across the nation.

Our first issue was published in the spring of 2007 and discussed the importance and significance of the resurrection for Christian life and theology. The theme of this issue is “Christ in Film and Fiction.” While systematic accounts of Christian theology have their place, much can also be gained by exploring the world of narrative through film and fiction. Famous authors such as Victor Hugo, Zora Neale Hurston, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis express their Christian faith through artistic media that has a wide appeal to Christians and non-Christians alike. Readers of the Bible are familiar with the use of narrative to convey God’s messages to the world. Not only in the parables of Jesus, but elsewhere, the biblical texts offer stories and narratives to explain God’s character. Simply put, a major way God reveals himself to the world is in narrative form. This issue features an interview with Duke alum Randall Wallace, writer of the famous motion picture Braveheart. Wallace is pictured on the cover.

We are proud to announce that our journal is now accessible online: www.duke.edu/web/religio. If you are interested in writing or contributing on a more general level, email us at religio@duke.edu.

We hope you will find the following pages meaningful and inspiring— enjoy!

Grace and Peace, Nate Jones and Andy Crewson Co-Editors Trinity ‘09

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COMING SPRING 2008: The theme of next semester’s issue will seek to explore the interaction of Christianity and the different academic disciplines we study here at Duke. Questions we will engage with include: Is my major compatible with the Christian life? How does being a Christian differentiate me from others in my field, if at all? Can Christian theology inform my area of study? Can my area of study help the Church in meaningful ways? These are some of the many questions we will hope to address in our next publication. If you are interested in writing something relating to this theme, please contact us at religio@duke.edu.

Redefining Religious Relationships: The Interfaith Imperative Jonathan Cross, Trinity ‘10 Too often the many facets of religion are viewed through a post-9/11 world lens. The explosion of Islamic extremist activities in the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq and Britain, coupled with the heightened stress between Israel and its neighbors, has put a whole new spin on the traditional tensions among world religions. This is tragic not only from a human perspective, for the misery it entails and the damage it inflicts on world politics, but is also a short-sighted error that does a severe injustice to both the harmony and conflicts inherent in a world replete with various religious traditions. Because of a consistent lack of proactive and articulate moderate voices (especially from Muslims and Christians), there have been resurgent and impassioned pleas for tolerance in the light of religious extremism.

How do we foster tolerance in a world with a miserable history of intolerance among the world’s major religions? Tolerance requires a personal intellectual and attitudinal separation and distancing that simply pushes the “other” away from what is comfortable and amiable. By driving away unfamiliar ideas, we are reinforcing the assumed superiority of one tradition and distancing all those that differ. Thus, the ability to discriminate and act in ignorance becomes natural and routine. As a result of the polarization between the extremes of apologetics and intolerance, many have sought the means for “a middle way” (to reference a key concept in Buddhism)—and it is this bridge between religions that is at the heart of the interfaith movement.

The idea of interfaith relationships is neither novel nor original. It is rather a strained ebb and flow of tensions.

As the Crusades ground to a close, the Moorish Empire (711-1492 CE) in modern-day Spain flourished—where society was a diverse polivocity of facets contributing to the betterment of the human condition. Not only did the study of mathematics, sciences and arts flourish, but the religious relationships among the major religions were incredibly wholesome as well. Under the Islamic Caliphate of Cordoba, Muslims, Jews and Christians held equal rights to worship, a success due in part to the respectful coexistence of these traditions. On the other hand, a population diverse in religious backgrounds can also tear at the fabric of society—as was witnessed with the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the subsequent turmoil in India. The concept of interfaith is by no means original.

Given the variation of relationships among religions within and beyond various boundaries, how should we define “interfaith”? Interfaith is not an attempt to rationalize every similarity among religions or traditions, nor does it deny theological, social or political discrepancies among them. Moreover, interfaith does not imply (as too many people believe) the homogenization of faiths. Neither does it require an abandonment of one’s own belief structure or traditions. Instead, interfaith is the collaborative and progressive attempt to genuinely understand the essence of each religious tradition and to establish a relationship conducive to acting on the collective needs of the human condition. While this may seem like a daunting—even impossible—task, it is a very natural process, when unimpeded by prejudices and ignorance. As the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, Dr. Eboo Patel, energetically asserts, America has witnessed the transformation, albeit incomplete and gradual, of the relationships among the races, sexes and even cultures—but not the religions. By shattering our often fallacious presumptions about those religious traditions other than our own, and by redefining ourselves along with this diverse reality, we are truly in engaging in an “interfaith movement.”

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In this sense, studying interfaith is a “mirror” of faith. A mirror does not reflect the total identity of the onlooker, but reflects a single, one-dimensional, incomplete image of the original. The image in the mirror is a pale image of the original that tells us little of its physiology and less of its spirit, character, motives, desires or ambitions.

Too often this is what happens when one views other religions from one’s own myopic religious culture. Studying other traditions, cultures and religions does not require discrediting or abandoning one’s own cultural or religious background—and in many cases it may actually strengthen it. A Christian participating in Shabbat, Ramadan, or Diwali (to name but a few) should never feel threatened about losing his or her own faith. In learning to respect both the eerie similarities and stark differences among religions, we step toward a deeper understanding not only of another faith, but of ours as well. For example, scholars have investigated the immense parallels between the Buddha’s teachings and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Furthermore, studying a variety of religious traditions lends itself to gaining a greater comprehension of the purpose of religion in the human condition. From a humanistic point of view, religion has served many functions for individuals, and as a basis of culture and an underpinning for nationalism. In some cases this has led to prosperity (such as furthering the arts, sciences and education) and in others to tragedy (such as the conflict in Burma, the Inquisition and the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War). But aside from the effects of extremism and fundamentalism, religious traditions provide a glimpse into the inherent curiosity of the human spirit. For most people, including atheists and agnostics, their upbringing is often set against a background colored with the wisdom stories of religious traditions that provide ways to stifle suffering and heighten human happiness.

Inherent to every religion is the idea of compassion—a unifying thread that ties individuals of differing traditions together. There is no reason to believe that this fundamental, humanistic thread should not continue to expand to include other areas of social religion and theology. This is the heart of the interfaith idea—that understanding breeds respect through shared existence. The great irony is that despite the hate that sometimes permeates society, each tradition’s religious texts plead for harmony amongst people of different backgrounds—despite their convergent and divergent beliefs. As stressed earlier, the purpose of interfaith work is not simply to encourage idle chit-chat over the theology within religious texts. Instead, it is focused not just on recognizing these conditions intellectually, but on using the common basis of each religion to catalyze people of diverse backgrounds and faiths to better their communities.

Religion often sets the tone for our relationships, foundational beliefs and reactions to our surroundings.

Without a greater understanding of the traditions that surround and envelop us, we have little hope for garnering any harmony among people. This is certainly not a new phenomenon induced by the politics of the modern world. The idea of interfaith action depends on the basic belief that when considering the myriad of religious traditions we unveil a greater magnifying glass with which to view not only ourselves but those around us as well. In this spirit, it is my hope that we may gradually transform the scene of religious relationships from ignorance and misunderstanding to constructive harmony.

Though best known for his crusades for civil rights in the United States, over forty years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. saw the imperative need for the modern interfaith movement when he wrote, “Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” Some forty years after his death, his words have never been more prophetic. Interfaith is no longer a luxury; no longer can it be a backwater philosophy of restraint and tolerance. It must become mainstream if we are to normalize the positive relations among diverse religions and relax traditional tensions.

Jonathan Cross is a Trinity Sophomore majoring in Religion and pursuing the Islamic Studies Certificate. He is a member of the Duke Varsity Fencing Team and President of the Interfaith Dialogue Project and hopes eventually to engage in international diplomacy.

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CHRIST IN FILM AND FICTION

Their Eyes Were Watching God ▪ My Sister’s Keeper ▪ Les Miserables ▪ Harry Potter ▪ The Bourne Ultimatum

Trust in the Lord With all Your Heart: A Lesson in Faith from My Sister’s Keeper Lawrence Armand Trinity ‘10 It was the summer of 2006.

We had just graduated high school.

We spent the summer with friends before leaving home.

We prepared as the class of 2010 to enter Duke.

And we read My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult as our summer reading book.

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The novel follows the Fitzgerald family and in particular two sisters: Kate, the firstborn sister who was diagnosed with leukemia, and Anna, her younger sister who was born to be a donor match for Kate—at first to provide stem cells from her umbilical cord, but later asked to donate a kidney. The novel’s presentation of the Fitzgerald family’s journey is complete and engaging. Much of it is a series of flashbacks of personal experiences intertwined with a lawsuit that occurs in the present. Anna files the lawsuit for her right to choose to donate her kidney. Sara, the mother of the two sisters and a lawyer by profession, defends the family against Anna in the lawsuit. Ironically, Kate encourages Anna to file the lawsuit because she feels as if she had taken too much of Anna’s and the rest of the family’s life.

As I read the novel, I felt a range of emotions: anger, sadness, even happiness. I also began asking questions concerning the ethics of cloning, or similarly, the Fitzgeralds’ dilemma: is it right to have a child for the purpose of creating a potential donor? As Christians we ask, where does God play into this dilemma, if at all? Beyond ethics, I wonder what exactly motivated Sara and Brian, the parents of the two daughters, to decide to have Anna. I believe that the true questions concern the motives of the heart and trusting God. Why did Sara and Brian decide to have Anna? Was it purely to save Kate, or were they genuinely interested in having another daughter? …Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34b, NIV).

Motives drive our decisions on a daily basis. We decide based on consideration of the possible consequences.

During the lawsuit for Anna’s right to keep her kidney, Sara defends their actions and questions her daughter’s lawyer: “You think you can lay it all out in words, black-and-white, as if it’s that easy. But you only represent one of my daughters, Mr. Alexander. I represent both of them equally, everywhere, every place. I love both of them equally, everywhere, every place” (Picoult 297-8). What else could a mother do? She saw an opportunity to save her daughter and the consequences seemed to favor the entire family. Her motives seem pure: have another daughter who helps the family keep their first daughter. Even then, in preserving life we need to understand when to give God control of the situation.

Now faith the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1, KJV).

Worries about having children are common throughout the biblical narrative, especially in Genesis. God tells Abraham, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them…so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5). Yet Abraham and Sarah are old and still find themselves childless and therefore heirless. Eventually, Abraham’s and Sarah’s patience wear thin and they agree to have a child through Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant.

Sarah specifically says, “…perhaps I can build a family through her” (Genesis 16:2). From this suggestion, Abraham and Sarah choose their plan above God’s plan. While having good intentions, they were wrong to take matters into their own hands by using Hagar, indicating a lack of trust in God. In My Sister’s Keeper, Sara and Brian Fitzgerald were motivated to have Anna by the fear that they would lose Kate. Even though they initially intended to use only Anna’s umbilical cord, Sara and Brian did wrong in having Anna to help save Kate. They did not trust that God could change Kate’s situation, instead taking matters into their own hands. No human should ever be born to be a donor for another human being. This purpose may have seemed noble, but it devalued Anna as a unique human being and forced her into a role and responsibility for her sister that she could not control. Now, Anna never protested until Kate, who worried that Anna was not being allowed to live a complete life, asked her to object to giving the kidney. This worry of Kate’s was correct. Sara and Brian could never have foreseen the outcome of their situation and neither could Sarah and Abraham, but trusting in God’s plan is a much better strategy than creating our own.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path (Proverbs 3:5-6, KJV).

Trusting God is hard. It requires us to let go of our cares, our worries and the things we hold most dear. In letting go, we need the strongest patience to stick to God’s plan. We need to see clearly that God’s plans are greater than our own that God has “plans to prosper [us] and not to harm [us], plans to give [us] hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11), just as God had a plan for Sarah and Abraham.

As humans, we have many fears of which to let go. By God’s grace we can let go of the worst, the bad, even the good things that keep us from God’s best for us. So today I encourage you to put Proverbs 3:5-6 into practice.

Lawrence Armand is a Trinity Sophomore majoring in Chemistry. He is involved with Cambridge Christian Fellowship and is a Resident Assistant. Lawrence is passionate about playing the trumpet and loves to play basketball in his spare time.

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Seeking the Pear Tree: Katie Daniel Trinity ‘09

A Mandate to Love in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is a literary work of art written in 1937 that gained renown during the cultural revolution of the 1960s. In the novel, Janie, a forty year-old black woman in Florida, recounts to her friend the story of her life: her heart-breaking marriages to Jody and Logan, her encounter with true love in her relationship with Tea Cake, and finally the tragedy that suddenly robbed her of this love. In the way that the novel tells of the formation of the soulawakening love between Janie and the young, free spirited Tea Cake, it is a classic love story. At the same time, however, every word, every character and every plot twist thrusts Hurston’s readers into the world of African-Americans in Florida in the early part of the twentieth century. In this way, the novel is Hurston’s comment on Southern black culture. More than anything else, however, Hurston’s work is the tale of Janie’s odyssey, her forty-year quest to find the life embodied by the pear tree that she dreamed beneath as a girl.

It is only when Janie

When fifteen year-old Janie discovers the pear tree in discovers Tea Cake’s true, her grandmother’s yard, she is a wide-eyed child who believes that the perfect symbioses between the tree and the rest of God’s selfless love that “her soul creation characterizes married life. Hurston writes, “She was crawled out from its hiding stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting place” and her life came to breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to embody the perfect vitality her. She saw a dust bearing bee sink into the sanctum of the bloom, the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love em- and beauty of the pear tree brace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to the tiniest in her grandmother’s yard. branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was marriage!” Hurston, however, uses Janie’s loveless marriage with Logan Killicks to show both Janie and the reader that her flourishing pear tree and the nature that surrounds it cannot be a symbol for marriage. Janie leaves Logan for Jody, believing that with this forward thinking man she can obtain the vitality embodied by the pear tree; however, the nearly twenty years that she spends with Jody, who is never able to love Janie more than he loves himself, only lead Janie to believe that the pear tree is nothing more than an illusion. Hurston writes, “She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be.” It is only when Janie discovers Tea Cake’s true, selfless love that “her soul crawled out from its hiding place” and her life came to embody the perfect vitality and beauty of the pear tree in her grandmother’s yard.

In the same way that we learn from Janie’s relationship with Logan that Hurston’s eloquently described tree cannot symbolize marriage, Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake reveals to us that it instead must be a symbol for love. Only after Tea Cake’s love frees Janie’s soul does she begin to experience the vitality of the pear tree. “He could be a bee to a blossom,” Janie thinks. “—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with is footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.” Tea Cake allows Janie to enter the world of the glossy leaves, bursting buds and singing bees that Hurston paints for us as a symbol for love.

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At the same time, however, we are able to see through the elegant imagery Hurston employs in describing the pear tree and its perfect relationship with the nature surrounding it that the tree also represents God’s creation. Because it was out of love that God created the world and with it Janie’s perfect pear tree, ‘like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again,’ we should understand that the pear tree that Janie seeks represents at once God’s love for the world and our love for one another.

Thus, when Janie finally experiences the life embodied by the pear tree through Tea Cake’s abounding love, she is at the same time drawing close to God by experiencing his abounding love. In the end, Tea Cake’s love brings Janie to God. Hurston reinforces this point in the way that she allows the life of Tea Cake’s character to reflect the life of Christ. When Janie’s story begins, she is full of hope and passion, but as she passes time in a world without love, her soul disappears inside her. Hurston explains, “She got so she received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference (77).” When Tea Cake enters Janie’s world, he rescues her soul from its hiding place and gives her new life. After teaching Janie to live, however, Tea Cake sacrifices his own life to save her. Here, the symbolism is powerful: in order that the one he loved not be overcome by a rabid dog—a beast that, once a creature of God, had transformed into “pure hate”—he gave his own life and defeated the beast in the process. Hurston writes, “Tea Cake, the son of Evening Sun, had to die for loving her,” reminding us of the way that Christ, son of God, also died to rescue us from sin and death. Then, in the last lines of the novel, Hurston resurrects Janie’s savior—the man who taught her to fish, who awakened her soul, and then who died so that she could live. Janie is lying in her bed when Tea Cake returns to her: “Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was… Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking… Here was peace.”

Just as Christ was physically resurrected to sit at the right hand of God and to change the lives of those who love him long after his physical death, Hurston resurrects Tea Cake with the glory of the sun around his shoulders to live in Janie’s loving memory eternally.

Hurston’s novel, then, is not just a love story—it is the love story. Through Tea Cake’s character, Hurston recounts for us the perfect, unfailing, self-sacrificing love of Christ. In the way that Tea Cake’s love allows Janie to embody the image of the pear tree, Hurston’s symbol for God and his ultimate love, we see that it is love that draws us close to God. Before his death, Christ commanded his disciples, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Tea Cake’s character follows Christ’s last mandate by emulating the life of Christ in the way he loves Janie. In this way, he rescues Janie from darkness and brings her to God. In this way, Hurston is telling us in her poetic literary masterpiece that we draw near to God by loving each other in the way that Christ has loved us. In doing so, we experience God and our souls too are able to crawl out of their hiding places.

Katie Daniel is a Trinity Junior majoring in History, with a focus on the History of the American South. She is currently studying Spanish in Madrid and plans to attend medical school after graduation.

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Rurouni Kenshin:

Finding the Word in unexpected places James Smyth Trinity ‘08

Among the nations with religious freedom, Japan is certainly one of the least Christian. Of the country’s residents, 84% practice both Shinto and Buddhism. According to the CIA, of Japan’s 127 million residents, 0.7% profess to be Christian, in stark contrast with neighbor South Korea (26%) and even officially atheist Communist countries like Vietnam (7.5%) and China (3-4%).

Christmas and Christian-style wedding ceremonies are popular but largely secularized. Imagery such as churches, crosses and angels often appear in art, but they are employed for exoticism as often as they are for serious commentary. With all this in mind, you can imagine my surprise when I happened upon Christ in the graphic novel/television series “Rurouni Kenshin” (translated as “Wandering Samurai Kenshin”). Though, to my knowledge, creator Nobuhiro Watsuki is not a Christian, his work addresses atonement in a manner so contrary to traditional Japanese culture that he must have drawn some ideas from Jesus’ teachings. Though it is an action series whose primary audience is teenagers, much like Harry Potter, there is something more serious at work here.

Himura Kenshin was an assassin for the rebels during the Meiji Revolution of the 1860s. Though he told himself he fought to save the people from oppression, his leaders misused him, and the constant homicides engulfed his spirit. After causing the deaths of innocent people in two separate incidents, he vowed never to kill again. To this end, he wanders the countryside defending the weak to atone for his sins. He replaces his katana, a long sword, with a sakabatou, a sword which is blunt on the striking end, so he can incapacitate aggressors without taking their lives. He bears a large cross-shaped scar on his cheek, acquired when he killed the innocents, as a reminder of his former life.

A comparison with the 47 Ronin, one of the most popular stories in all of Japanese history, highlights how radically different Kenshin is. In this tale, a lord named Asano is forced to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, after assaulting a more senior lord named Kira, who had been insulting him. On December 14, 1702 (I give the date because this whole affair actually happened), after a year of plotting, forty-seven of Asano’s former retainers attack Kira’s house to exact vengeance. Kira is unwilling to kill himself, so the ronin behead him, send the youngest to surrounding villages to publicize their deed and then turn themselves in to the authorities. The elder 46 commit seppuku together for the crime of killing a lord while the youngest is spared.

These events and the popular legend surrounding them illustrate various tenets of bushido, the samurai code, that stand in stark contrast to Christianity. Foremost among them is the idea that suicide is the only way to expiate one’s dishonor, whereas Christ said, “I came that they might have life, and might have it to the full” (John 10:10). The practice of seppuku is opposed to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross: whereas a martyr has his life taken by others, a suicide throws away God’s gift himself. Moreover, sin violates the law of God; dishonor only breaks the law of man. Furthermore, Christ rejected the concepts of revenge and dishonor so important to the ronin: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” (Matthew 5:39). Finally, the term

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ronin refers to a samurai without a master. A wanderer such as this was considered dishonorable; Jesus, as an itinerant preacher, would break this model.

Seventeen centuries after the time of Christ, seppuku was still acceptable in Japan, and it continues to occur today. The grave of the ronin at Sengaku-ji is revered and has witnessed more than one act of seppuku in years thereafter. In 1970, famed author Yukio Mishima stormed a military base in a coup d’état and then committed seppuku. In 1999, Masaharu Nonaka, a 58-year old employee of Bridgestone, slit his stomach to protest his mandatory retirement.

Kenshin may not rise from Japan’s suicide rate continues to be one of the highest in the the dead, walk on water, or world.

The character of Kenshin, who would not be controver- forgive sins, but in meeting sial to us, is a relevant witness to Christ in Japan. Christ said the Japanese in a familiar that all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Matthew place, he is bringing Christ’s 26:52), but given the general acceptance of Thomas Aquinas’ later writing on the right to fight in order to defend the weak, teachings to an audience that Christ’s words are considered more as a warning for our be- would not have been open to havior than as a prohibition of violence. Kenshin does fight to protect the weak, affirming the Beatitudes. His vow never to them otherwise. kill, to which he must adhere under even the most difficult circumstances, comes directly from the fifth commandment. His cross-shaped scar recalls both the mark of Cain and the crucifixion and indicates that his status as a Christ figure is intentional.

Most exceptional is Kenshin’s understanding of forgiveness and mercy, which he shows even to enemies, echoing Luke 6:27-28. In one scene, he stops a doctor who is committing suicide out of shame for making opium for the mafia. He rejects the idea that suicide pays for one’s past crimes, saying, “There is another way to atone. You can’t bring back the people you’ve killed at your own deathbed.

Rather than that, a single person wielding a sword for many—that is the true meaning of atonement.”

A former enemy says of him, “Without his mercy, I would have been killed already and be floating in a pool of blood in hell. But now I can bask in the sun like this again…I’m thankful. The Battousai is not only strong…he’s completely different.” When someone praises a woman for needlessly sacrificing herself in a battle, he says, “How can anyone find happiness in dying? If she’d lived she might have had more—it could have been different…” In these and countless other instances, the series repudiates the old ways.

Kenshin may not rise from the dead, walk on water, or forgive sins, but in meeting the Japanese in a familiar place, he is bringing Christ’s teachings to an audience that would not have been open to them otherwise. Truly, the Lord can reveal himself in remarkable fashion.

James Smyth, a Trinity Senior, is a Philosophy major with Math and Spanish minors. He has been very involved with the Newman Catholic Student Center and the Awakening Retreat. He plans to live and work in Japan next year and eventually to write as a profession.

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At the Deathbed of Valjean: Les Miserables and the Beatific Vision Nate Jones Trinity ‘09 As Jean Valjean, the criminal-turned-Christian protagonist of the story, lay on his deathbed, his loved ones surround him. Fantine, the mother of Cosette, entrusted her care to Valjean as she died early in the story. Eponine, daughter of the cruel Thénardiers, gave up her life for the sake of Valjean’s son-in-law, Marius. Cosette, Valjean’s adopted daughter, was his closest friend and only close relative.

As they come together to mourn his impending death, it becomes clear that they should rather celebrate a life devoted to the glory of God. In all the great scenes of musical theatre, there is perhaps none more beautiful and brilliant than this final deathbed scene. In it, we find the culmination of a story full of sin, conversion, sacrifice and, most importantly, self-giving love. But at various points in the scene, we are given a glimpse into what this story really is all about.

Les Miserables is a story about the church. Singing presumably as an angel, Fantine bids Jean Valjean entrance to heaven with these chilling words: “Come with me, where chains will never bind you.” At the heart of Fantine’s plea is the central Christian conviction that one can only come to know God through another. Fantine and Eponine reinforce this idea as they sing, in duet, “take my hand and lead me to salvation.” For Valjean, it was the bishop and Cosette. For Eponine, it was Marius. For Fantine, it was Valjean. But for each, something crucial is revealed about God: he makes himself known through the holy lives of others. Les Miserables’ vision of the church is thus one in which the grace of God radiates through the holiness of the believer for the edification of the entire body. Simply put, Les Miserables is only interested in individual holiness and conversion insofar as it serves the church.

Les Miserables is a story about forgiveness. After Fantine pleads to God on Valjean’s behalf, Valjean responds, “Forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your glory.” In isolation, this plea could be taken as a selfish request for eternal life by an unrepentant man. But any discussion of Valjean’s understanding of forgiveness must begin long before the final scene. It must begin when Valjean first encounters the bishop and his radical forgiveness. For Valjean, the bishop’s forgiveness is radical in two senses: it is freely offered, and it requires a transformative response. Freely offered forgiveness had previously been unintelligible to a man whose entire framework of thinking rested squarely on payback and vengeance. However, the bishop’s offer was too good to pass up and Valjean took it. But a piece was missing. How, then, would Valjean respond to such grace? He would become the same agent of forgiveness to Fantine and Javert that the bishop had been to him. Valjean’s deathbed entreaty is not a selfish plea—it is rather the language of a man transformed by the live-giving power of forgiveness.

Les Miserables is a story about self-giving love. The final scene is home to what is likely the most memorable phrase from the entire musical: “to love another person is to see the face of God.” But the popularity of this phrase ought to give us pause. The writers of Les Miserables, and Victor Hugo speaking through them, are not talking about the kind of self-infatuated love that so often dominates modern notions of love. Rather, this is the kind of self-giving love that glorifies God and the other rather than the self. Around Valjean’s deathbed stand people who embodied that very kind of selfgiving love. In spite of Marius’ lack of romantic interest, Eponine

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gives up her life for him at the barricade. Moreover, Fantine works slavishly both as a prostitute and as a factory worker to support Cosette, her beloved daughter. The thread that binds these characters together, and to Jean Valjean at his death, is a selfless love of God and of one another.

Les Miserables is a story about the kingdom of God. The final chorus, sung presumably by the church in an allegorical sense, uses the same melody as the revolutionary battle cry of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from earlier in the story. The text is, however, framed by an allusion to Isaiah 2:4: “They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord. They will walk behind their plowshare; they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.” The new text given to the melody suggests nothing less than a prophetic vision of a new world. In this world, the swords of men are blunted in the face of God’s glory. The musical then ends with an entreaty. Much like the revolutionary battle cry that summoned men to war, this entreaty summons men to the kingdom of God. As the entire cast returns to the stage, they sing triumphantly: “Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?” Yes, there is a world we long to see—a world transformed by the church’s practices of forgiveness and self-giving love. This is, as Thomas Aquinas put it, the “beatific vision” that the Christian must always hope to see.

Nate Jones is a Trinity Junior double-majoring in History and Religion. He enjoys singing, reading and playing basketball and golf in his spare time. He worships at Duke Chapel and sings with the Duke Chapel Choir.

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Film in Review: The Bourne Ultimatum Benjamen Ober Trinity ‘09

Before launching into commentary on this particular film, allow me to step back to make a few introductory comments on analyzing popular culture, such as film and media. A prevailing notion in our culture, particularly among college students, is that movies are something to be enjoyed and savored, not critically engaged (as if the two are mutually exclusive!). A movie is not “just a movie.” Films are akin to modern day pulpits. Every shot, scene and sentence in a film is selected to convey certain themes and ideas. Directors, editors and screenwriters do not create ex nihilo; these men and women bring their biases, perhaps unintentionally, into the realm of artistic creation. Every director in Hollywood makes choices on how they portray reality.

As a consumer of mass media, I want to know what I am consuming. As a Christian, I want to know what I am consuming and how the culture around me ticks. Understanding popular culture is vitally important for Christian communities because it helps us contextualize the Gospel message for our specific culture. Our Christian fundamentalist brothers and sisters are making a colossal mistake of missional importance by jettisoning popular culture as entirely sinful and wicked. Even if popular culture is perverse to the highest degree, that is largely irrelevant to the mission of the Church, which is to reach every man, woman and child with the message of the saving work of Jesus. The mission of the Church is not to huddle up in little Christian enclaves and watch the world around us perish.

Ultimately, I think Christians must be discerning consumers of culture for the sake of the Great Commission. We will never be able to reach a culture with the life-transforming message of Jesus if our neighbors remain utterly foreign to us.

A great biblical illustration of this principle is found in Acts 17. The apostle Paul sought to evangelize the men and women of Athens. To do so, he established common cultural ground with the Athenians through art and philosophy—he quoted from Aratus, a Greek poet 3rd century B.C.E., and the Stoic philosopher Epimendies. He could tell people about Jesus because he sought to engage men and women on their cultural terms. Paul reigns as the best missiologist in the history of the Christian Church, and we stand to benefit a great deal from his example.

Moving from the general to the specific, let us turn our attention to The Bourne Ultimatum. The world of Jason Bourne, according to director Paul Greengrass, is one of corruption, conspiracy and uncertainty. A quick review of Greengrass’ previous work would suggest as much. Aside from The Bourne Supremacy, Greengrass has received praise among critics for his work in Bloody Sunday (2002) and United 93 (2006). Greengrass is slated to direct Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a drama about American foreign policy mistakes in occupied Iraq.

In The Bourne Ultimatum, the cutting and editing of the film communicates this picture of a frenzied, uncertain world. Rarely does Greengrass linger on any one shot for more than a few seconds. The camera angle, perspective and focus are constantly changing. As a director, one of Greengrass’ calling cards is the handheld camera, which creates a shaky visual effect. The picture is shaking even during non-action scenes (i.e. the dialogue between Bourne and Marie’s brother or Bourne reading the newspaper). Although Greengrass has received some critical backlash for his overuse of the handheld camera, it remains an effective technique.

The audience very clearly understands that Bourne’s world is dangerous and unpredictable.

The Bourne trilogy is centered about the idea of transformation. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) cannot remember who he was prior to becoming a CIA special operative. The third film clarifies the meaning of Bourne’s name. As David Webb underwent special training, his identity was transformed, and he was born anew—as Jason Bourne. Bourne is not the only char-

acter for whom transformation is a key theme. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is another character who undergoes a transformation. Nicky dyes and cuts her hair as a means of identity transformation. For Nicky, changing her physical appearance is not just a disguise. Symbolically, the physical change reflects her decision to aide Jason Bourne. In this manner, Nicky mirrors the transformation of Maria Kruetz (Franka Potente) from The Bourne Identity.

The theme of transformation is closely tied to water as a motif.

Filmmakers tend to rely on water as a routine symbol of washing away the past. Interestingly, water appears to have baptismal significance in this film. Paul Greengrass expands slightly on this theme and connects water symbolism to character transformation. David Webb becomes Jason Bourne by means of submersion in a dunking tank. Greengrass, quite brilliantly, reinforces the motif of water as transformation in the final scene.

Shortly before jumping into the Hudson River, Bourne tells CIA mastermind Albert Hirsch, “I’m no longer Jason Bourne.” After jumping into the Hudson River, the audience clearly sees that Bourne has finally severed all ties with his dark past. The closing track of the film is entitled, “Jason is Reborn.” Water is the vehicle by which David Webb’s “Jason Bourne” persona is both created and destroyed. Like Bourne, Nicky is also transformed by water. Nicky’s transformation scene (in a hotel in Tangier) shows a brief shot of dye circling around the bathroom sink and down the drain. The old Nicky, who was loyal to the CIA and Operation Treadstone, is washed away.

A second pervasive theme in The Bourne Ultimatum is the pessimistic commentary on national security.

Greengrass suggests that government espionage is a dirty game played in the name of national security. Behind the smoke and mirrors lies the ugly reality that clandestine operations are driven by personal vendettas, quests for power and love of money.

Consider CIA deputy Noah Vosum’s (David Strathairn) interaction with Pamela Landy (Joan Allen). Vosum orders the assassination of Nicky Parsons on a whim. Landy challenges his authority to target a fellow CIA operative. Vosum reveals his two deepest motives in the conversation that ensues. The first is fear of exposure. In Vosum’s eyes, it is worth sacrificing lives simply to avoiding bringing embarrassment upon the CIA and the U.S. government.

The second motive is grounded in a personal score to settle. Vosum feels humiliated by his inability to kill Bourne and his allies. The audience wonders along with Pam Landy, “When does this stop?” Vosum’s nostrils flare, his eyes glaze over, and he coldly exclaims, “This stops when we’ve won.” Greengrass makes it abundantly clear that none of the chief CIA operatives (Vosum, Ezra Kramer, Neil Daniels, Ward Abbott, Alexander Conklin, et al) in the Bourne films really care about national security. They care about settling personal scores, making dirty money and protecting their jobs.

How might a 21st-century Christian relate to The Bourne Ultimatum as Paul related to Greek poetry and philosophy in Acts 17? I would suggest that a modern Christian should affirm the basic themes of the film as biblically legitimate. Transformation and the water of baptism are central to the Christian life. Jesus means not merely to forgive Christians of our wrongdoings, but to mold us into God-centered, Christ-exalting worshippers. Jesus came not to simply teach us nice moral lessons about God, but to change us radically into new creations.

The director’s perspective on national security also rings true in light of Christian faith. The commentary about national security might be pessimistic, but it is the reality of any organization in a broken world. Christians should affirm that no social institution, including the Church, will measure up to God’s standard of justice and perfection. While some Christians may object to the violent manner through which Greengrass communicates these themes, that does not negate the validity of his observations. Greengrass very clearly communicates that the world is a jacked-up place—to which the Christian in me responds, “Amen.”

Benjamen Ober is a Trinity Junior double-majoring in Public Policy and Religion. He is a member of the Summit Church in Durham, a Bible study leader with Campus Crusade and ICON representative.

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Sacrificial Love: An Image of Christ in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Jeff Dahlberg Trinity ‘08 It has been labeled as anti-Christian, encouraging of witchcraft and dangerous to the spiritual development of children. However, the Harry Potter series has managed to sell well over 300 million copies worldwide as the tale of the young wizard has captivated people of all ages and cultures, myself included. But do these attacks have merit? Do the Harry Potter books actually damage people’s spiritual lives by encouraging “detestable” practices such as sorcery (Deut. 18:10)? After reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, book seven in the renowned series, the overarching ideas of the story that were previously so hazy became more clear to me. I saw themes, not of hatred and demon worship, but of love, friendship and sacrifice. While Harry Potter is certainly not Jesus, I believe that if we are attentive we can see Christ in the fictional yet serious seventh book.

I should note that this is not an attempt to defend the Harry Potter series from the criticism it has received; rather, what I hope to communicate is how I saw meaningful parallels to Jesus through Harry’s actions and aspects of his character as described in Deathly Hallows.

I saw themes, not of hatred and demon worship, but of love, friendship and sacrifice.

While Harry Potter is certainly not Jesus, I believe that if we are attentive we can see Christ in the fictional yet serious seventh book.

These parallels begin with Harry’s unceremonious farewell to the Dursleys—the family that raised him since the death of his parents—and to the house in which he spent his unhappy childhood. Throughout the entire series, Harry’s presence is a thing to be tolerated by his relatives rather than embraced or accepted and he lacks the same power and freedom at home that he enjoys all year at Hogwarts, his wizarding school. Despite his enormous fame in the magical world, Harry remains a nobody at Number Four, Privet Drive. Similarly, in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth after being anointed by God in his baptism and teaching in Galilee. Despite Jesus’ teachings, miracles and insistence that he was the son of God, the people of Nazareth saw him simply as the son of Joseph, a carpenter, rather than as the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament. This led Jesus to declare in that “no prophet is accepted in his hometown” (Luke 4:24). Harry Potter, who is himself the fulfillment of a prophecy, is likewise shunned in the house of his childhood by a family that refuses to see him as anything other than an unwelcome burden thrust upon them by the inconvenient death of his parents.

Although in previous installments of the series Harry is disdainful of the house-elf Kreacher, in Deathly Hallows he discovers, with Hermione’s help, that elves are worthy to be treated with respect and kindness just like humans. In fact, as Harry matures throughout the series, we see him begin to show kindness and mercy to all those whom he encounters.

This includes everyone from house-elves to social outcasts like Neville and Luna. Harry’s kindness extends even to enemies like Draco Malfoy, whom he loathes for much of his time at Hogwarts but eventually chooses to save in the seventh installment, risking his own life in the process. This

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behavior is consistent with Jesus’ command to love not only our neighbors but also our enemies and to repay evil with good (Matt.

5:38-44). Christ sets the perfect example for us, submitting to the will of God and dining with the outcasts and “sinners” of the world, loving them just as much as his disciples (Matt. 9:10-13). Although Harry does not model perfect behavior, he shows compassion and gentleness to all and especially to those who have been marginalized or shunned by everyone else. He even affords Voldemort, his mortal enemy and the murderer of his parents, a chance at remorse and the restoration of his soul—an offer which is scorned, but it shows that Harry’s first instinct is to grant his enemy another chance rather than to kill him.

One of the most important aspects of Jesus’ character is that he is fully God and fully man. He not only led a perfect life but also was subject to the same injustices, temptations and sufferings that we endure here on earth. What makes Jesus distinct is that he completely resisted all of the devil’s temptations and was able to fulfill the prophecies and become the perfect, unblemished sacrifice necessary to cover our infinite sin. In the final chapters of Deathly Hallows, Harry discovers that part of Voldemort’s soul resides within himself and that he, Harry, must die in order to rid the world of the evil wizard once and for all. As I saw how Harry refused to give in to the temptation of the power of the Hallows and was willing to give up his life to vanquish Voldemort and save those he loved, I was reminded of Jesus’ resistance to temptation and his willing sacrifice for every one of us, whom he loves deeply. While Harry was an utterly imperfect sacrifice in comparison to Christ, he still had a choice: he could give himself up and try to save the world from the evil Voldemort or he could run and save himself. In the end, Harry could not bear to think of Voldemort prevailing and killing or enslaving everyone he loved and thus chose, like Jesus, to face death in the hope that others would live. Because of his sacrifice, Harry is resurrected and walks the earth again—yet another unique commonality with Jesus, whose resurrection conquered death. In fact, the inscription on the tombstone of Harry’s parents reads, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26).

As I finished reading Deathly Hallows, I could not stop thinking about Harry’s selfless love for others. It reflects Jesus’ love for the entire world, a love so deep that he willingly gave up his life to conquer sin and death. While Jesus is clearly the model according to which we should strive to live our lives, Harry Potter’s example can be inspiring to us all even if he is a fictional character. Flawed and human just like each of us, Harry still was able to love as it is described in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” To me, this example of Christian love is much more valuable than whatever worth the criticisms of the Harry Potter series can take away.

Magic and witchcraft aside, if we all lived a little bit more like the boy wizard hero, who showed love, mercy and compassion to all, we would understand more of what it means to serve Christ.

Jeff Dahlberg is a Trinity Senior majoring in Psychology. He is a part of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the Duke Jazz Ensemble and also plays basketball and guitar. He plans to go into education or social work after graduation.

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Where I See Chri

Personal accounts from members of the Duke commu “I do my serious praying every morning during my walk from the parking lot to my Duke office. In this way I encounter Christ at Duke first thing in the morning. One of the things I pray for is to be lifted up to teach with passion so that my students might be informed and motivated. Often I have students in whose life Christ walks, and I greatly enjoy the brief moments where we share thoughts. I also have students who come from other religions and cultures whose time at Duke I relish. I feel Christ working through me to help enrich their academic and personal lives at Duke.

Recently I heard an M.Div. student say that he had found Christ in the poverty of small village life in Africa, but that he found studying theology at Duke to be very isolated from this scene. I doubt that Christ would shun the opportunity to walk among us on our pristine campus!

Human need, struggle and celebration transcend the Gothic towers. Behind the veil is the journey each of us are on to find a way through life’s obstacles and opportunities. Among our students, some end up in my office wearing the pain of failure or indecision. I always ask Christ to be present in these moments to help me be a useful resource. In addition is the continual flow of blessings that happen each day in our Duke world. I am mindful of the source of all such blessings, whether it be a passing grade, a promotion, or a life saved by medical intervention. I see Christ all around us at Duke. The opportunity to experience his life-giving love is available to all who open their eyes to it.”

Richard Fair Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering “Living on Central definitely has its downfalls, but one of the unanticipated perks has been walking through the Duke gardens on my way to and from West. I’ve always been someone who experiences God through nature, and what better place to have that encounter than in the gardens, among the quiet rustling of the pine tress and the multicolored glory of the flowers? But it is not only in the flora that I see Christ in the gardens. It is in the people who flock there too. I am constantly amazed by the diversity of people in the gardens: little kids flying kites, old couples holding hands, Duke students studying in swimsuits. Sitting in the grass one day, I heard conversations in English, Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish.

For me, the gardens on a glorious day are a little preview of what heaven might be like. God’s diverse creation—trees, flowers, birds, people—all enjoying each others’ presence and living in harmony, giving praise to their Creator.”

Amy Little Trinity ‘09

“Of life’s many uncertainties, the decision to attend Duke was not one. My father and I made a ten-hour road trip to visit Duke completely on a whim the morning of Good Friday. Hearing the Easter strains during my first visit to Duke Chapel struck in me an unequivocal sense of purpose and belonging. The soaring voices and seemingly limitless power of the organ and brass redefined praise for me, and I instantly knew that my place was in the Chapel’s choir stalls. A phone call the next day from my mother regarding a thick envelope from Duke sealed the deal. The next four years I experienced Holy Week from within the Chapel Choir, surrounded by musicians whose faith and music were inseparable: an inspired and communicative director; an organist whose improvisations could covey even the brooding stress and anxiety of waiting in Gethsemane; families who looked after me as their own son; my friends. It was clear that Christ had drawn me to this choir at Duke to experience Him through its music and to grow spiritually through its fellowship.”

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Justin Jaworski Pratt ‘03, MS ‘06, PhD ‘08

ist at Duke...

unity of their experience with Christ on campus “I am from the San Francisco Peninsula, literally the least church-going area in the country. I went to a high school of 2,400 where I could count the dedicated believers without needing both hands. Duke is absolutely amazing for me—I have never been around so many Christian peers in my life. The first day of college I met the four kids that have become my best friends here—and they’re all believers! I thank God every day that he gave me a group of close friends that understand me and that I could connect with on a deeper level because we all believe in God. The first Saturday of college, I wasn’t the only one going to bed because I had to get up for church—I wasn’t even the one who brought it up! Now that I am getting plugged in with Campus Crusade, I keep meeting more and more solid Christian friends. It is an unbelievable blessing for me to be at Duke and to see Christ in so many of my friends. For those of you who are used to seeing all your school friends in the pews with you on Sunday, you are very lucky. I am so thankful that I finally get to live in a place where I can experience a Christian community all around me.”

Jenni Brandon Trinity ‘11

“The Bible verse about ‘giving and not expecting the one who is receiving to give back’ reminds me of the time Ebony, a Duke student, purchased not only a Bible, but also the Bible cover and the CDs that accompanied it. She gave them to one of the employees here at Chick-Fil-A. In this action I saw Christ here on campus.”

Julia Anderson Staff, Chick-fil-A

“I see Christ at Duke every time I see my friends, whether they are Christian or not. I have been truly blessed with a solid group of Christian friends who have been a source of support, strength and inspiration for me. Whether it is staying over night at the hospital with me, missing their classes so I would not feel alone or listening to my complaints, my closest friends constantly show me love that is grounded in their faith. My own faith has been reinforced through the example they set and I do not think the friends I have made are a coincidence, for which I thank God every day. My Christian friends have inspired me to become everything that they are to me to my non-Christian friends. Whether it is doing a favor, helping move in, or just listening, I hope that I can be a source of Christ in all my friends’ lives. God has blessed me beyond my own imagination here at Duke. All of the wonderful opportunities and experiences I have had at Duke are more than I deserve, yet the one thing I hold onto like a treasure is my relationships.”

DJ Chung Trinity ‘09

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POETRY AND LYRICS In Abba’s Hands Stop! I know you’re there. Why can’t you just stop?

Is this fun for you? Do you like my pain, As I contort when you rip me apart?

My thoughts my pleasure, all of it you maim.

I see now of your manipulation: Mirrors, tricks, idols for self-hatred.

Through God’s eyes these are of no use to me; Meals through Christian fellowship quench my dread.

I’m trying, you hear that? Can you listen?

You cannot win, not this time, not again!

You’ve won before, too many times to count, But you will never triumph in the end.

My health may be weakened, my spirit low, For it is by the grace of God I go.

But lo, blessed are the poor in spirit, For the Kingdom of Heaven God bestows.

You demon, you know why you cannot win?

Don’t lie; scripture says you quake at the name!

He is here; he has been here all along.

The truths you speak are only lies you claim.

See, I’m different now. My purpose is clear.

Each vice, yes even you, shall fall aside, For you have no place in my future.

The path of the cross by grace I’ll abide.

Erinn Funk, Trinity ‘11

Constantly Amazed I am constantly amazed

by God. When I was first reborn in Him I wasn’t as intrigued by His Word and His Ways Because I had yet to realize who HE WAS — This Creator, Love, Light, and Ancient of Days.

But as I live my life to His pleasure, I’m beginning to realize there’s so much about Him I learn of and treasure.

He shows me a little, Then I long for more.

His awesomeness engulfs me And I’m pierced to the core With a single truth revealed: I. AM. LOVED. I feel as though all of heaven has spilled Into a vessel too tiny to contain it and that vessel is me.

I’m too small to explain it.

I can only say I’m overwhelmed and amazed by the love of God.

By His Love, Life and Word— I am gripped.

And still more—this cup of His wonder is bottomless And I’ve only just sipped.

I am constantly amazed by God. I’m still imperfect and I will be so.

I’m only human as both God and I know.

But I’m pleased to be Because the Living God is living in me.

And most importantly He isn’t who you or I want Him to be Unless we want Him to be Himself.

He said “I am that I am” and He never lies, So He is who is

—No compromise.

And He writes.

So I’m constantly in love with His Word.

You see, I call myself a writer, Even a poet—when I dare.

I’ll lie down in a good poem and let my intimate thoughts lie bare.

That’s what God did for me From Genesis to Revelation When He spoke to all nations and to all generations.

The intimate thoughts of the Lord are given freely And won’t be ignored, Won’t return to Him void.

His Spirit speaks to me.

Isn’t that amazing?

I wish I could express to you the awesomeness of God. I am loved, lead and guided by the living Word He wrote Which makes sense— After all, heaven and earth were created when He spoke.

And He writes to me in the holiest of Books.

So I’m captivated, inspired and I cannot overlook— That I’m constantly amazed by God. Shannon Nelson, Trinity ‘09

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Seek the Music of Your Soul: An interview with Randall Wallace Randall Wallace is a Hollywood screenwriter, producer and director. Among his most famous works are Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor and Man in the Iron Mask. Currently, he is working on a film adaptation of his novel, “Love and Honor,” about the life of Catherine the Great. Once called “the least cynical voice in Hollywood,” Wallace’s films often convey rich theological messages of faith, love and sacrifice. He graduated from Duke in 1971 as a Religion major and attended Duke Divinity School before leaving in order to pursue his career as a writer. We recently interviewed Wallace—discussing his career, his inspirations and his years at Duke.

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You once said that former Duke Provost and Dean of the Divinity School Tom Langford advised you to explore your interest and gifts in creative writing. What did that mean to you?

Wallace: Dr. Langford was more than a teacher and faculty advisor to me; he became my example of a man who could embody both intellect and faith. He was soul, warmth, wisdom and laughter. He never tried to influence my decision to stay in seminary or to leave. What he did was to accept—and in so doing, make it easier for me to accept—the notion that God might have a purpose outside of anything I might have planned. Dr. Langford showed me open doors in places where I had seen only walls.

When trying to discern whether or not to leave seminary in order to explore a career in film, what ultimately helped you reach your decision?

None of the reasons seemed as clear at the time as they do in retrospect. I wasn’t as excited by the prospect of another year in school as I was intrigued by jumping into the unknown; I wasn’t sure I really wanted a writer’s life because I didn’t know for sure what that was. It wasn’t a film career that I was consciously pursuing—making movies had never occurred to me as an actual possibility. I had a deep longing—it was indefinable, but it was not vague. I had to follow it.

What “gets your creative juices flowing?” Can you pinpoint anything specific in your life that seems to inspire you creatively?

I look for goosebump moments, those times when we become like children in the sense that we don’t have to figure things out because we know something at a deeper level—when our souls tell us that we are in the presence of something divine, something that makes our bodies tingle and our spirits laugh or cry. When I feel it myself, I have the faith that others will feel it too—and if they don’t, I can live with it.

In “We Were Soldiers,” you intentionally included a scene in which the Lord’s Prayer was recited on the battlefield. What purpose did that serve?

Hal Moore, the central character in that movie, prayed on the battlefield, and prayed every day afterwards. In portraying him praying, I simply told the truth.

Christ said, “greater love hath no man than to die for his friends.” Many fans of Braveheart draw parallels between William Wallace’s self-sacrifice and the crucifixion of Christ. Is there a cruciform dimension to William Wallace’s self-sacrifice?

People ask me about my historical sources for Braveheart. There are almost no sources for Braveheart that historians would think of as valid. Braveheart isn’t a work of scholarship, it’s a work of imagination, a work of the soul. Its greatest inspiration is the New Testament, and its parallels are, I think, plain.

Describe what it’s like to work closely with such notable actors as Mel Gibson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeremy Irons.

Great actors, like great Directors of Photography, Production Designers and other artists whose talents go into making a film, are inspiring to work with. Writing tends to be a solitary profession, and its autonomy is one of the aspects of the vocation that I love. But filmmaking is collaborative, and that brings its own joys and its own challenges. When a team is working, the whole is inciting each part to be better.

Many Christians are told in their youth groups that there is a strong tension between the church and Hollywood. For example, we often hear “While Hollywood tells us X, the Bible tells us Y…” Is Hollywood really homogenous and hostile to Christianity?

Hollywood isn’t any more homogenous than the church is, but there is a culture in each. My sense is that Hollywood isn’t hostile toward Christians but it is hostile to what it considers narrow-minded and judgmental. Of course, the culture of Hollywood fails to see its own narrowness, but that's the way of the world. Faith is necessary everywhere; love is rare everywhere, and is always in a battle with fear.

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Do you ever find that there is a gap between what you envisioned when writing a screenplay and what came to fruition on the screen? Is that frustrating, exciting, or both?

To make a movie is to go from the idealized abstraction of a screenplay to a concrete manifestation, and there are thousands of choices along the way. This is a challenging adventure.

Between graduation from Trinity College and entrance as a freshman at Duke Divinity, I interned at a church, and I was dismayed at the politics, the compromises, the disconnect of ideals from practice; this wasn’t a failure of that particular church. My dismay was typical of a romantic rookie in any profession. What I learned is that you don’t walk away from the dirt, you dig in. They say “the Devil is in the details.” So are the angels.

You were an undergrad here and spent some time at the Divinity School as a student. You’ve also kept up with Duke in a variety of ways over the years.

What kind of transformations have you seen specifically in campus culture/ religious life and generally in Duke as a whole?

Duke, from my perspective, has become greatly more prestigious and can celebrate test scores and a certain academic conformity. In my life outside of Duke I’ve seen neither of those be characteristics of real success. But Duke has always looked for other attributes like initiative, originality and persistence, and most of all it has sought to celebrate character; it’s one of the qualities of Duke that I love most.

Was there anything specific about Duke that gave you a sense of vocational clarity?

At Duke I felt unusual; that what I wanted was atypical—and Duke embraced me. The faculty saw me as a person, not a product. My classmates encouraged me in my dreams. One of them said to me, “Randy, if you don’t go out and pursue your ambitions, we’re going to whip your ass.” Who could ask for better friends?

Many Duke students come here with firm vocational ideas and goals in mind. As someone who changed vocational goals at least once while here, what advice would you give to Duke students about setting vocational goals?

It may be a great gift to know, at a young age, exactly where you want to go—but I would encourage openness at every step, to keep yourself available for inspiration, surprise, delight, adventure. Try different things, follow interests rather than programs.

How do you feel about Duke’s increased attention to the arts in the past several years? Do you think that a vibrant arts program is essential to a thriving university?

Arts are absolutely essential, but I prefer the term “poetics.” There is poetry in music, in literature, in painting; but there is poetry in engineering, in science, in psychology, in theology and in athletics, too. I tell my sons—one of whom graduated recently from Duke, and the other of whom just entered SMU—to seek the music of your soul.

Looking back on your time at Duke, what is your favorite memory and what is one thing you wished you had devoted more time to or explored further?

My favorite memories are many and varied—fabulous teachers, challenging friends, and soulful times of solitude too, walking alone through the campus on a full-moon night, staring at the chapel floodlit in the fall mists, wondering if I’d ever find the right direction for my life or the right person to make that journey alongside. If I could go back and whisper anything into my own freshman ear it would be, “Worry less. Trust more. Give more to gratitude, and less to fear.

Love and forgive everyone their imperfections—starting with yourself.”

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HOPE FOR THE KINGDOM:

Observations on the Church in Spain Leigh Edwards, Trinity ‘09 Madrid, Spain

Spain is known as a Catholic country. It was for a long period of its history dominated by a Muslim population and rule, but was later taken over by Christians (during a time when the Catholic church was the church). After forcing conversion on most of the populace, the monarchy finally expelled even the “converted” Muslim population, making being Spanish equivalent to being Catholic. This legacy has persisted ever since and has shaped the country that I have called home for these three months. It is the church experience here for a semester in Spain that begs serious contemplation of the nature of the Christian church. I cannot claim to be an expert on the religious profile of Spain, but am only involved as an amateur and biased observer.

Madrid, the capital, is a different Spain than the rest of the country. It is the most modern, cosmopolitan and international city in the country. Yet it still has a Catholic church building on practically every block. Madrid presents itself as the perfect playground for the confrontation of engrained traditional religious beliefs with modern global thought.

The Catholic Church, or at least the culture created by the Church, still has considerable influence on culture, religion and family life. As Spain modernizes, though, it is the failure of the most recent generations to embrace the Catholic faith itself that raises some serious questions. No doubt there is a myriad of other views on this trend, but my own informal inquiries have led me to see the three generations of my Spanish family as an appropriate case study.

My 71-year-old señora, who still attends weekly Mass, describes herself as “muy, muy católica.” Attending any Spanish Mass, it is simple to see that the vast majority of the congregation is of the older generation. My señora faithfully attends weekly Mass with her friends, reads books by the Pope and prays when and what the Church directs her to pray. Though she owns a Bible, she opened it for the first time in a long time to point out that it was too dangerous for people to read it themselves and interpret it however they wanted. However, she does show quite a liberal side sometimes. We were discussing a request by the Arab League for the Catholic Church to share a Mosque turned Cathedral with Muslims for services. The Catholic Church had declined the offer. As for my señora, she claimed that because the Catholic Church had said that, she was in agreement. A few moments later, though, she added, “still, in my opinion, it would be okay.”

My señora’s adult daughters were all baptized and confirmed. Today, none of them attend church or hold to its beliefs. They accept the Church as more of a cultural institution that they acknowledge as important to their parents, but that is irrelevant to their own lives. Still there are some members of this age group seen at Mass, many with younger kids. I attended an English-speaking Catholic church here in Spain. This congregation was international and made use of some contemporary music as well as a choir.

The proponents of the changes seemed to be the adults, and this church had by far the largest population of middle-aged adults (even Spaniards) than any other Catholic Mass I had seen in Spain.

At the furthest end of this spectrum, my señora’s grandchildren, to her dismay, have little to no experience or knowledge of religion in their lives. Raquel, a seventeen-year-old Spaniard, began to talk to me one day about the difference in religious practices here from in the United States. She mentioned how she, along with almost all of her friends, was neither baptized nor confirmed. When I asked her why she thought this was, Raquel just shrugged her shoulders and said that her parents had wanted religion to be her own choice after she was old enough to make such a decision. This, she said, was the case for people her

age and younger, and they had overwhelmingly chosen not to be a part of the Church. This sort of decline in church participation seems to be a common story not only in Spain, but throughout much of Europe as well. I visited a Belgian friend of mine and she spoke of how irrelevant the church seemed to her life as well as how much it bothered her grandmother to know this. The tone that both young women used to speak of religion was the same they might have used had they been discussing the decision to have a sweet sixteen birthday party.

The picture presented raises more than a few questions. The two most obvious are these: what is the reason for such a trajectory? Are there any signs of hope for an apparently declining church in Spain? The answer to the first question is impossibly complicated and will probably be better answered by future generations with the advantage of hindsight.

Still, its consideration affects the answer to the second question.

The surface answer to the first question is that the practices of the Catholic Church are meaningless to those of the younger generation. The practices and theology of the Catholic Church have been thought through and refined for 2,000 years. It is not that the theology of the Catholic Church is not logical or meaningful. Rather, the modern Madrileño society is one in which morality is relative and each individual is encouraged not to believe the wisdom of the past but to create their own personal dogma based on what conclusions they happen to have reached at the time. The slow process of change and adaptation that has kept the Catholic Church faithful for 2,000 years is failing to relate to a younger generation that views its practices as arcane. To Spaniards, the church seems to have drifted towards being a community where dogma, ritual and practice are emphasized The most obvious response to this in Madrid, as well as in other Spanish cities, is an increasing presence of protestant, especially English-speaking, “non-denominational” churches. These churches represent the other end of the pendulum’s swing. They seem to have in common an especially strong focus on the church as community and an equally strong aversion to anything outwardly dogmatic. The English-speaking international church that I attend is one that is purposely anti-liturgical and only holds worship twice a month in order to have social events on the other two weekends. A similar process seems to be repeating in Mexico with charismatic churches, but unlike there, in Madrid practically the entire congregation is made up of internationals living in Spain, not the Spanish themselves. Perhaps it is more scary for Spaniards to consider a church that is adapting in step with modern thought than one that adapts too slowly. The “hope” of the church in Spain does not lie in the trend of these newer and more modern international churches. It lies, perhaps, where we should all be going.

Back home, every once in a while the very Southern congregation of my Baptist church stands together, opens to a page in the hymnal, and reads the words of the Apostle’s creed: “…I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins…”

The Baptist hymnal is good enough to put an asterisk by the word ‘catholic’ and subtly place below a footnote for an alternate word: “or universal,” as if to assuage the consciences of those who may begin to connect the reference to the big C Catholic Church. This asterisk was my first introduction to the difference between the idea of the big C Catholic (the Catholic Church proper) and little c catholic (the all-encompassing Christian body). Still, in a Southern world where religious denomination could be as socially descriptive as the car you drove, and where Catholic is an almost unheard-of response, confessing to believing in little c catholicism is almost as out of place as big C Catholicism. Almost.

Both the big C and the Protestant Church, as well as every other church body, must find ways to accept each other as a part of the little c. This means not only accepting difference but also critiquing it and allowing oneself to be critiqued.

The Catholic Church must reconsider its views on catholicism. The Protestants must confront its existence. We must find the umbrella of orthodoxy under which we can all fit and find our places as unique but necessarily co-dependent parts of the body. Perhaps here the Madrileños can come to accept that this wisdom of the ages is not incompatible with modern life. Just so, the ritual of the Catholic Mass is not incompatible with the community-centered focus of international Protestants. This is a bold and complicated goal, but together we are the community of Christ, even if we choose to deny or disregard it. A Catholic man recounted to me one day the story of Jesus making St. Peter the cornerstone of his church. He surprised me by finishing, not with Papal authority, but with this statement: “Jesus made us, people, you and I and him, are the church. Not this building or this institution. The believers are the church.”

Is there hope for the church in Spain? The necessary Christian response is yes, there is some hope for the same problems that there is for the church around the globe. This is part of the kingdom that is, but is not yet. The hope that exists is the hope of Christianity, the hope for the Kingdom.

Leigh Edwards is a Trinity Junior double-majoring in Religion and History with a certificate in Jewish Studies. She is involved with Duke Chapel and Interfaith Dialogue, and she is currently studying Spanish in Madrid.

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Sarah Howell corresponds regularly with William Barnes (“Tim”), a death row inmate at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. This unique experience and the resulting relationship has challenged and clarified her views on capital punishment.

PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEATH PENALTY No One Is Beyond Redemption Sarah Howell Trinity ‘09 Anyone who has seen either The Green Mile or Dead Man Walking knows that the death penalty is a contentious issue, not only in film and fiction, but also in the church and in the lives of Christians. One film shows an innocent man implicated in a crime and eventually executed in another’s place; the other portrays a man guilty of a heinous act. Both are gut-wrenching and raise troubling questions about the ethics of capital punishment.

The United Methodist Church, of which I am a part, has stood against the death penalty for over 50 years. Many other denominations take a similar stance. American Christians especially must grapple with this issue because the U.S. is one of few developed countries that have retained the death penalty over the years.

As the modern world has advanced, the overwhelming trend among industrialized nations has been to abolish the death penalty. Capital punishment is not practiced anywhere in Western Europe; in fact, abolitionism is required for membership in the European Union. The company that America keeps in its use of capital punishment is less than flattering: other nations with high rates of execution include Iran, Iraq, Sudan, China and Pakistan, countries whose human rights records are unimpressive.

The demographics of those against whom capital punishment is used in America evince a disturbing trend.

A huge percentage of convictions are handed down to defendants who could not afford an attorney, and a majority of death row inmates are people of color. In 80% of capital cases, the victim is white, but only half of homicide

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cases nationwide involve white victims.1 Amnesty International’s website summarizes this in a damning statement: “From initial charging decisions to plea bargaining to jury sentencing, African-Americans are treated more harshly when they are defendants, and their lives are accorded less value when they are victims.”2 The fact that the people who are executed for crimes in this country are those who are already marginalized by society evinces the ease with which one can dehumanize criminals and distance oneself from the humanity of the accused.

Much time and energy has been spent in finding more humane ways of carrying out executions. Regardless of the extent to which certain methods of execution may or may not be “humane,” the death penalty is an incontrovertibly violent act. Violence entails doing bodily harm to another person, and I can think of no bodily harm more permanent than death. One does not need the example of Eduard Delacroix’s grisly death in The Green Mile, or the real life example of Angel Nieves Diaz, whose 2006 execution in Florida took over half an hour, to recognize the face of violence in the death penalty. The danger that emerges here is one that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized well when he pointed out that “returning violence for violence multiplies violence.”3 Peter Storey, a Methodist bishop in South Africa who helped lead the nation’s protest against apartheid, made a similar observation: “If you justify violence for any reason, no matter how good and noble, you legitimize it for every reason, no matter how wrong and unworthy.”4 Both King and Storey had seen what violence had done to tear their countries to shreds and had heard the good news that with Christ lies the way of peace and reconciliation, a path intentionally shunned when recourse to violence, including the death penalty, is taken.

To support capital punishment is to say that some people are beyond redemption. This was not what Jesus declared when he stretched his arms out on the cross in an eternal gesture of welcome and forgiveness. This was not what Paul was telling the early Christians when he said, “while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”5 Jesus was a victim of the death penalty, and he was flanked on each side by criminals being put to death. To the thief who cried, “Jesus, remember me,” he responded, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”6 Who is this Savior who hangs next to sinners and tells them the gates of heaven are open wide to them, even as they endure state-mandated execution for crimes they willfully committed? This is the Savior we address thus: “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.”7 Christ’s death and resurrection declares loudly that no one is beyond redemption, and the use of the death penalty flies flagrantly in the face of this unconditional, forgiving love.

Capital punishment seeks to establish a system of justice, but it is enslaved to the concept of retributive justice.

The famed Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa explains the difference between retributive and restorative justice eloquently in his book No Future Without Forgiveness. This is exemplified in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held in post-apartheid South Africa. Archbishop Tutu writes that retributive justice, “whose chief goal is to be punitive…has little consideration for the real victims and almost none for the perpetrator. We contend that there is another kind of justice, restorative justice…the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeking to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator.”8 Tutu says that this approach looks at a crime as something personal, “something that has happened to persons and whose consequence is a rupture in relationships.”9 In the legal workings of capital punishment cases, the perpetrator is the accused and the wronged party is the state. In actuality, it is all of us, including the perpetrator, who experience the crime as a tear in the fabric of humanity. The American justice system does not acknowledge this and provides the victims’ families—not to mention the perpetrator’s loved ones—little space for healing. Our legal system sees only the transgression of laws, not the rending of human hearts.

Christ came not so that everyone might get what they deserve in an “eye for an eye” system of justice. Christ came “that they may all be one.”10 Christ died and rose again that broken relationships might be healed and that all might be reconciled with God and with one another. To resort to the death penalty is to make permanent the damage done to human relationships in a violent act, first in the initial crime and again in the perpetrator’s trial and execution. To say that the death penalty is the only option is to abandon the hope that we, the body of Christ, broken and bruised, may one day be made whole. We, as Christians, need to believe that we are promised more than the suffering we now experience and to recognize that in our ability to forgive and to live in peace with one another lies God’s greatest dream for us, his most beautiful creation.

Sarah Howell is a Trinity Junior double-majoring in Religion and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Sarah is a member of the Wesley Fellowship, sings in the Duke Chapel Vespers Ensemble and attends Asbury Temple United Methodist Church in Durham.

References 1. www.amnestyusa.org.

2. www.amnestyusa.org.

3.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Lecture, 1964.

4.

Peter Storey, With God in the Crucible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 147.

5.

Romans 5:8, NRSV.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Luke 23:42-43, NRSV The Book of Common Prayer, p. 101.

Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 54-55.

Tutu, 55.

John 17:21, NRSV.

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In Christian Support of the Death Penalty William Payne Trinity ‘10 Cropping up everywhere from the halls of Capitol Hill to TV’s Prison Break, the death penalty remains today one of the most hotly debated issues in America. For Christians, who seek to live their lives with the Lord as their moral compass, capital punishment proves to be an especially pressing issue. Can we reconcile the faith of the Christ of the Gospels, who urges us to turn the other cheek, with the most severe of penalties, the ending of an offender’s life? Can conservative, evangelical Christians, stirred out of their political slumber a quarter century ago to crusade against the murder of unborn children, maintain a cohesive moral philosophy if they oppose abortion but not the death penalty? In a word, yes. With careful attention paid to fairness in the application of the highest form of punishment, especially by addressing concerns of racism and of wrongful convictions, Christians can, nay, must support the use of capital punishment. As a tool actually to further society’s commitment to the right to life, the death penalty not only makes sense; it is supported by both Holy Scripture and important Christian thinkers through the ages.

Capital punishment is an appropriate and effective tool in dealing with the worst elements of society, those who take the lives of innocents. Take the case of Clarence Ray Allen. After being caught organizing the burglary of a convenience store, Allen ordered his cohorts to strangle the helpless employees. Following his arrest and indictment for murder and a host of other crimes, Allen orchestrated (from jail!) the murder of several witnesses by one of his accomplices so that no one could testify against him in an appeal. Allen was executed by the state of California, having claimed the lives of four innocents. Putting brutal individuals like Clarence Ray Allen to death removes the threat of those who would do society harm, whether out on the street or from the confines of a prison cell. Never again will they be able to commit their crimes, as did the infamous Willie Horton, who assaulted a man and raped his

wife while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison, serving a life sentence for murder. The execution of convicted murderers also provides a deterrent, demonstrating to potential criminals how a secure society deals with murderers.

Thus, this system is a practical and reasonable way to deal with murder in an organized society.

The existence of a civil and just society demands the option of putting murderers to death. Perhaps the most important justification for the death penalty is that its existence upholds the concept of a citizen’s natural rights, specifically the right to life. Indeed, by punishing those who unjustly take the life of another by taking away the guilty party’s right to life, a society demonstrates its ultimate commitment to preserving its law-abiding populace’s right to life. For Christians driven into political participation by their support of the right to life, capital punishment thus proves consistent with their ideology. This “culture of life” holds that murderers have offended this most sacred principle, and their forfeiture of such must be demanded by a society committed to the right to life.

Far from being a radical position, Christian support of the death penalty can be found in both Holy Scripture and the writings of Christian leaders and theologians throughout history. Many Christians oppose the death penalty on the grounds that the Lord alone can claim vengeance (Romans 12:19). However, in the Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul writes: “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister to God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:3-4, KJV).

This verse is a Pauline confirmation of the idea that good government must exercise wrath upon those who do wrong.

In such a way does St. Paul assist the claim that the government does indeed have the righteous power to punish criminals with whatever force it deems necessary.

Other notable Christian figures and groups lend strong credence to the necessity of capital punishment. In the Augsburg Confession, the great Martin Luther endorsed the use of capital punishment. Though heavily qualified, the largest Christian denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, states in its Catechism: “Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”

St. Thomas Aquinas gives perhaps the most thorough Christian defense of the death penalty, arguing in his seminal work Summa Contra Gentiles that murderers corrupt Christian society, and their execution is necessary for the preservation of the good in society. To support his argument, Aquinas cites such passages as 1 Corinthians 5: “You know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump of dough? […] Put away the evil one from among yourselves.”

Indeed, to Aquinas, a godly society must rid itself of evil individuals. Thus, Luther and Aquinas, along with scripture itself, provide solid pillars of support for the Christian use of capital punishment.

The current system of capital punishment in the United States is certainly not without flaws. Greater care must be taken by policymakers to prevent racism from at all affecting the application of the death penalty and to affirm that every person sentenced to death is in fact guilty of the crime he committed. However, Christians should not hesitate to support the use of the death penalty in a civil society. It is both practical and logical to maintain the option of capital punishment so that murders can no longer harm others and because it has the potential to deter crime. In fact, it is quite consistent with Christian doctrines to support capital punishment, as it reinforces society’s commitment to the preservation of the right to life. Moreover, the idea of capital punishment as a necessary tool of governments is supported by both Holy Scripture and important Christian thinkers through the ages. Christians should demand the option of capital punishment in a civilized society.

William Payne is a Trinity Sophomore double-majoring in History and Political Science. He enjoys politics, reading and writing, and he plans to attend law school after graduation.

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